Apr 29, 2015

Weird Picks #10: Mid Lane Varus

Ever since champions like Jayce and Nidalee hit the rift, the strongest of the poke champions have all made the spotlight and eventually subsequently nerfed. However, there stands one that rarely, if ever, sees the spotlight.

Introduction

Ever since champions like Jayce and Nidalee hit the rift, the strongest of the poke champions have all made the spotlight and eventually subsequently nerfed. However, there stands one that rarely, if ever, sees the spotlight.

An underground pick for a long time and recently picked up by Unicorns of Love in a professional level game, Varus provides large-scale utility and massive range poke.

How to Play Varus Mid

Varus mid is played as an attack damage caster with standard AD runes and prioritizing R> Q> E> W.

The only difference between mid lane Varus and regular Varus is that many prioritize spamming his Q rather than stacking pure damage (think ARAM style).

This means that they tend to rush a Manamune, then stack armor penetration items such as brutalizer and last whisper. Some recommend Blade of the Ruined King for self-peel and tank killing power, but it's also possible to go straight to Black Cleaver instead to maximize your Q's power. but an alternative is to go bloodthirster instead to maximize your Q damage.

Benefits of Varus Mid

Compared to Nidalee's 1500 range Javelin Toss, Varus' Q maxes out at 1625 range and can also go through targets (albeit with reduced damage).

When maxed, it is very potent and its projectile speed is fairly difficult to dodge.

Additionally, he provides some amazing waveclear and excellent primary or secondary intitation via his ultimate, which was recently buffed for increased missile width.

Disadvantages of Varus Mid

The majority of disadvantages of Varus mid are basically the same as many other "poke" type champions like Kog'maw including:

Low mobility;

Lower all-in damage early on; and

Forces team to usually wait for poke damage before engaging.

As an AD mid, he also forces your top or jungle to try and pick something with magic damage, but with the Cinderhulk meta favoring a lot of AP junglers that hasn't been an issue.

Thoughts on Varus Mid

For the most part, I actually think that Varus mid is balanced in Tier 2, if not actually closer to Tier 1 in power and will be adding him to the list on the 5.8 patch update.

He provides almost everything you want in a mid laner, and is definitely fairly simple to play in comparison to a lot of other mid laners.

What do you think about Varus mid? Comment below!

First time to Nerfplz.Lol or not sure where to find everything? Try the Site Map

With the Black Cleaver change and not being built from a Brutalizer any longer, would you still grab an early Brutalizer? If not, how does this change affects his build and will Varus mid be good with the reworked Black Cleaver?

Lich Bane gives more potent autoattacks and abilities, which would seem to work better with his kit as an AP mid than the other combat stats he recieves. But, maybe not? I can see how Trinity Force would be stronger earlier into the game, with Lich Bane scaling significantly better. So, is Trinity Force being bought then for its better early-game statistics? Trinity Force also gives more sustained damage than Lich Bane, but again, that's only really relevant early-mid game.

Any sort of additional insight here would be great. Been thinking about this for a few days, still not entirely convinced that it's worth getting the Trinity Force instead.

They extra move speed and rage passive would give Corki significantly more kiting ability, and the 30 AD and 30% attack speed are strong even on AP Corki, since all of his spells scale with AD aside from his W, which is primarily an escape ability anyway.

That's kind of counter pick, when he knows Vlad is a short range mage and does not have some dash (just a tiny MS boost which costs 20% HP). And such "weird" pick did not continue because against any assasins (Zed, LB, Ahri, ...) or just Xerath he would screw up :) .

But if people in Yolo queue thinks Varus is new FoTM I would be very happy, Freelo waiting!

Strangely whenever I play AP corki I always rush Luden's, I feel like you make more out of it than either Tri Force or Lich bane with the extra waveclear off all your spells (W doing over 300 dmg per second in some builds is quite funny), hitting The Big One with the Luden's proc will often chunk off about 1/3 to 1/2 of someones health.

I normally don't even get either item until 3rd as I feel that depending on the situation Liandry's or Athene's will always be a better choice second item, despite how well Spellblade works on Corki I generally don't want to be in AA range as AP corki unless I'm going in to finish off a kill. Yeah you lose Tower killing power but you make up so much more in siege and poke